Oscars: Jimmy Kimmel Zings Trump Almost Immediately

The president is not watching the awards show, according to Sean Spicer.

It only took a few minutes for the Donald Trump bashing to begin at the 89th Academy Awards.

"I want to say thank you to President Trump. Remember last year when it seemed like the Oscars were racist? That's gone, thanks to him," said host Jimmy Kimmel in his monologue.

Political statements were expected on the evening, as numerous celebrities have used awards shows this season to express their concerns with and criticisms of the Trump administration.

Kimmel kicked off the show by saying, "This broadcast is being watched by millions of Americans and — around the world — 225 countries that now hate us, and I think that is an amazing thing." He later encouraged the audience to reach across the aisle to one another in order to heal the country's current divisions.

Kimmel also nodded to Trump's "overrated" comment about the Meryl Streep, who received a standing ovation, saying the Florence Foster Jenkins best actress nominee "has phoned it in for more than 50 films over the course of her lackluster career."

Trump is allegedly not going to pay attention to the Oscars as he will be attending the Governors Ball, White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer said previously. In years past, Trump has hate-watched the show and tweeted about it.

Kimmel joked that even if he didn't watch, Trump would still likely tweet about the show tomorrow "during his 5 a.m. bowel movement."

After the first award was handed out, Kimmel pretended to kick out any reporters from CNN, TheNew York Times and the L.A. Times, a joke about several news outlets being denied entry to a White House press briefing last week.

"If you're from CNN or the L.A. or New York Times — if you work for anything with the word 'Times' in it, even like Medieval Times — I'd like to ask you to leave the building right now, OK?" he joked. "We have no tolerance for fake news. Fake tans we love, but [not] fake news."

Mozart in the Jungle star Gael García Bernal also took a shot at Trump's Mexico border proposal while presenting for Best Animated Feature.

"As a Mexican, as a Latin American, as a migrant worker, as a human being, I am against any form of wall that wants to separate us," he said.

About two hours into the show, Kimmel said he was worried because Trump had not tweeted about the show yet, so he tweeted at Trump's account.

Kimmel also delivered a dig at Trump over his recent unfounded remark about a major terror incident happening in Sweden.

"Linus, on behalf of all of us, we're so sorry about what happened in Sweden last week," joked the host after La La Land's Swedish cinematographer Linus Sandgren's win.

Some Republicans and Trump supporters said over social media that they would not watch the show because they expected it to be nothing more than Trump bashing, with some using the hashtag "#NoOscarsForMe."